after almost five months of living in omaha, we’re finally feeling pretty settled in and have decorated and organized most of the apartment. last weekend, we figured we’d start to tackle the last of the spaces, our bedroom. specifically, the wall opposite our bed is huge and had nothing on it, so we were always staring at a boring blank, ugly-cream color wall. we wanted to do something simple, but that felt more homey and inviting so we could spend more time reading in our room during the cold months versus surrendering to the tivo every night.

we perused pinterest for ideas, but we didn’t love anything. we shopped around at a few places for inspiration, and even braved the grand opening of omaha’s first home goods (a mistake), but we still couldn’t decide on anything. eventually, i remembered that we had ordered prints of some of our instagrams over the summer, but never decided on where/how to display them. i also remembered seeing a few ideas on pinterest of people creating/buying frames and using string to hang their instagrams/polaroids, and we decided that would be perfect for our space! we searched for a cool vintage frame at a few thrift stores, but ultimately realized we could create the same effect by using cheap lumber and saving quite a bit on the project. we are pleasantly surprised by how well it turned out, and with the addition of “oh darling let’s be adventurers” (quote inspired by this blog), we are totally loving our new wall!

read on for materials needed and the how-to! 

materials needed:
 -two 2x2x8" pieces of lumber, cut to two 36" pieces and two 48" pieces (you'll have a little extra piece) or the size of your choice
 -small can of wood stain in your color choice (we used this one)
 -8-12 gold screws (drywall screws work, too, but the gold ones look nicer)
 -3 1/2" uppercase chipboard letters to spell out quote/words of your choosing (these are what we used for the "let's be adventurers" line)
 -3" lowercase chipboard letters to spell out quote/words of your choosing (these are what we used for the "oh darling" line)  -small tube of craft paint in your color choice
 -mounting tape (the roll works better than the squares since you'll end up cutting it)
 -twenty-four 1" mini clothespins
 -twenty-four polaroid style photos (we ordered from prinstagr.am, but you can follow this tutorial for printing your own)
 -twine or string for hanging photos
 -eight 5/8" gold cup hooks 
 -tools: level, screwdriver, small handheld drill

instructions:
1. lay out your four pieces of wood on newspaper and stain the three sides that will be showing. we didn’t want our wood to be too dark, so we just did one coat and wiped it off fairly quickly, but if you’re wanting to accomplish a darker look, follow the instructions on the can for doing multiple coats. let dry completely, about 6-8 hours.
2. prep the letters. if you’re adding lettering above your frame, now’s the time to get those painted. let dry for a couple hours and add a second coat if needed. once they’re dry, you can add the mounting tape to the back of these. this was probably the most tedious part of the project, since you’ll have to cut the tape to fit on the letters without showing. i overestimated the amount of tape these would need; they actually stick to the wall very well and haven’t fallen down, so you can probably get away with just a couple small pieces of the tape. leave the back of the tape on until you’re ready to place them.
3. determine placement of your frame on desired surface. we wanted ours centered on the large wall, so we made a few marking indicating where the top piece should go, making sure we left enough room above for the lettering we knew we were going to do.
4. screw the wood into the wall. we won’t pretend to know the best process for doing this, but we pre-drilled 8 holes (one on each end of each piece of wood) before putting them up on the wall. then, we took the top piece, screwed one side into the wall, made sure it was level, and held it in place while we screwed in the opposite side. once we had the top piece in, it was easier to make sure the rest of the pieces were on the wall correctly. next, we did the side pieces, and finally the bottom pieces. make sure you continue to check that each piece is level before screwing in the second screw. [for additional security, you can add four additional screws, one on the middle of each piece. this will help prevent the wood from bowing out].
5. mount lettering to the wall. we wanted ours centered with the frame, so we laid out the lettering on the floor first and determined the center of each line, then mounted them starting with the center and working outward. it’s not perfect, but we think it looks pretty good.
6. hang hooks onto inside of frame. again, you might want to pre-drill here, which will make them easier to screw in. if you’re using the same frame dimensions as we did, you can place the hooks on either side at 4″, 12″, 20″, and 28″ to get the look you see in ours. obviously, you’ll want to space them closer together or further apart depending on how large your photos are and how many rows you’re planning on.
7. hang photos! tie twine to one end of the hook, then pull across and tie to the other side. the photos will make it arc down a little bit, so you can hang the twine pretty much straight across (just don’t tie too tight). once all your twine is hung, arrange photos however you’d like using the mini clothespins. we love how we’ll be able to keep changing out the photos as we take more, and you could even update it for specific occasions (i.e. christmas, birthdays, etc.)

hope you enjoyed our little diy project. we’re hoping to add a few more accents to keep sprucing up the bedroom, after which we’ll post a full room tour :)